Mastering Tools

Compression (see Chap. 12 : Dynamics) is used in the mastering process to reduce dynamic range and increase energy in the track. Overdoing it with compression can squash the life out of a track so it’s important to use it subtly. Typically gain reduction of 1 to 4 dB should be enough. Multiband compressors (see Chap. 12 : Dynamics) can be useful at this stage if you need to compress different bands of frequencies separately. Multiband compressors split the signal into 5 Eq bands, each of which can be compressed separately.